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Never posted here but I want to hear people's opinions, not an endless stream of Bible verses.
The Christian version of heaven doesn't sound all that appealing and sometimes I think I'd rather not "go", lol. Saying this as a struggling believer.
A new, perfect Earth does sound appealing but the golden streets, being rulers and all that---- And more judgement! Who wants that?
IF your spiritual beliefs include a "heaven" what do you envision it to be? Is it just what you hope, or do you have some kind of confidence based on something "reliable"?
For me, having zero to base this on---my concept would be the ability to traverse the entire Universe and see it all, which would be a good reason to live "forever", lol.
Heaven is about being in the presence of God. It's described as having no night. The light of God will shine on all, and we'll be close to him with no sin to separate us.
God isn't going to force anyone to go that doesn't want to. Heaven is for his people to worship him and serve him and fellowship with him. If that doesn't sound appealing to someone, I'm not sure why they'd want to go there.
Heaven is about being in the presence of God. It's described as having no night. The light of God will shine on all, and we'll be close to him with no sin to separate us.
God isn't going to force anyone to go that doesn't want to. Heaven is for his people to worship him and serve him and fellowship with him. If that doesn't sound appealing to someone, I'm not sure why they'd want to go there.
There's a Christian theological argument that that is at least one aspect of it. But in my experience, my fellow believers did not think much in those terms ... that it is 100% fawning over god. They seemed to think of it in terms of "every tear shall be wiped away" which is to suggest that all grief and sorrow and loss is somehow made right. Things like being reunited with loved ones, living in peace and harmony (IOW somehow magically no one is ever at cross-purposes to anyone else). Or as I put it, earthly life without frustrations or speed bumps.
If heaven is going to be held forth as some curative for earthly tribulations and injustices, then it has to restore what people feel they have been robbed of or prevented from enjoying, that they had coming in this life.
Since in my observation people can barely be coaxed to come and worship for an hour a week, I do not think they are pining for a 24/7 version of that. They are looking for the other 167 hours a week to be enjoyable and fulfilling.
I am in no way commenting on whether it should or should not be that way. I'm just saying it IS that way. Even for ordinary Christians.
I am to a point where no afterlife concept I've ever heard of is appealing.
While "everlasting life" seems superficially a "what's not to like" sort of thing, I suspect that humans, as currently constituted, would before long find the Christian heaven to be its own hell, due largely to hedonic tone. Hedonic tone is the phenomenon where one quickly returns to one's emotional baseline, and cannot long maintain a state of emotional arousal. Novelty is assessed, and provided it's not an existential threat, is incorporated into a "new normal". Eventually, all experiences are not novel, and also similar to earlier experiences and one stops wanting new ones.
Don't get me wrong, maybe 250 years with good quality of life would be nice (it's always nice to have options) but at some point no matter how good the movie is, you don't want it to last forever. You just want to pee and go to bed!
We are story-telling creatures and stories have beginnings middles, and, yes, ends.
Hedonic tone is not the only thing a deity would have to alter for purposes of eternal life. Humans would have to be modified in terms of much of our basic motivations and thinking processes, as evidenced by the fact that earthly life is not an inexorably improving thing tending toward paradise. At certain times in history it seems like it might be, but at the moment it's pretty hard to see it that way.
The whole Christian afterlife concept assumes (1) you will be recognizably yourself only (2) without any imperfections or ignorance or self-dealing. Would we then even be human? Or even "ourselves"? That gets into the whole notion of what it is to be human, and what an idealized human would be.
I just don't think people looking forward to heaven have thought this thing through. Adding golden street paving and removing dirty old sex from the picture (remember Jesus said that in heaven "they are neither married, nor given in marriage" -- which might be a great thing for those of us who have been married more than once, lol) just doesn't sound like it's going to cut it.
People in my experience tend to think of heaven as earth without any frustrations or speed bumps. Is that really what you want to do for an infinitude of years? It would be nice at first but ... IDK, seems like kind of a nothing-burger when you actually think about it.
Put another way: life is precious precisely because it is singular and limited. Make it infinite and the equation changes.
Totally agree with you, Mordant. I remember the Twilight Zone where a man supposedly dies and goes to heaven. He has everything he wants and needs. After a while he gets bored and tells the entity in charge that he wants to go to the other place. The entity says, "this is the other place."
Heaven is about being in the presence of God. It's described as having no night. The light of God will shine on all, and we'll be close to him with no sin to separate us.
God isn't going to force anyone to go that doesn't want to. Heaven is for his people to worship him and serve him and fellowship with him. If that doesn't sound appealing to someone, I'm not sure why they'd want to go there.
But if God is omnipresent and eternal, aren't we already in the presence of God since time is a human construct?
As one who defines God as the Source of Life, I feel like I'm already living in that presence, albeit with the limitations of being human and all the problems that come with that. In my own life and of course in my opinion, I'm looking forward to reverting back to the energy from whence I came. And if that's not how it is, then okay.
Heaven is seeing God directly and with our own perfected senses.
Since God is Infinite both in Being and Goodness, being in His presence could not possibly become rote. There is forever and always something new to learn, understand, and experience.
The Nature of God transcends anything that we could possibly comprehend in this life.
The fact that God says that heaven is desirable for us is enough for me to believe Him.
Totally agree with you, Mordant. I remember the Twilight Zone where a man supposedly dies and goes to heaven. He has everything he wants and needs. After a while he gets bored and tells the entity in charge that he wants to go to the other place. The entity says, "this is the other place."
This theme was repeated in Serling's later series, Night Gallery in a short segment about a stoner who dies in a car crash and pops out a chute into a cozy living room. Lawrence Welk-style music is playing. On the couch sits a boorish couple. The man on the couch is showing slides of their vacation.
The stoner tries to turn the record player off but can't. The stack of records on the spindle is immovable. The guy showing the slides drones on.
The man beats on the door of the living room and Satan steps through the door. The stoner begs to be let out. Satan says, "It's ironic, isn't it? There's a room EXACTLY like this in heaven! Ah-hahahahahah!"
I recently rewatched Seven Years In Tibet. For those who don't know the movie (or book), it's based on the true story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian Nazi mountain climber who found himself a POW because he was climbing the Himalayas in India when WWII broke out, and so he was on enemy/British land. He escaped to Tibet, where the current Dalai Lama, then a child, took notice and befriended him.
The first thing the Dalai Lama asks him to do is build him a western-style movie theater, but he runs into a problem because the local construction workers fear that they will kill worms during the excavation for the foundation. The Dalai Lama explains to Heinrich that to a Tibetan, that worm may have been one's mother in another life, and we cannot kill our mothers. He cheerily assures Heinrich that he will find another way. And then we see people relocating the worms to another area and tenderly covering them with dirt and water.
I recently rewatched Seven Years In Tibet. For those who don't know the movie (or book), it's based on the true story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian Nazi mountain climber who found himself a POW because he was climbing the Himalayas in India when WWII broke out, and so he was on enemy/British land. He escaped to Tibet, where the current Dalai Lama, then a child, took notice and befriended him.
The first thing the Dalai Lama asks him to do is build him a western-style movie theater, but he runs into a problem because the local construction workers fear that they will kill worms during the excavation for the foundation. The Dalai Lama explains to Heinrich that to a Tibetan, that worm may have been one's mother in another life, and we cannot kill our mothers. He cheerily assures Heinrich that he will find another way. And then we see people relocating the worms to another area and tenderly covering them with dirt and water.
I'm inclined to believe that if there is a heaven (or place beyond), it would be unlike anything we now know or have experienced. There would be no way to describe it fully in the here and now.
Better to just be open and receptive to it and the possibilities than to describe now what might be impossible or inadequate. An analogy of sorts would be looking at a beautiful lake or listening to music, and describing it in scientific terms, rather than taking all in with the senses and appreciating it for what it brings to you.
Were those Heinlein books? Sounds really familiar and I've read all those.
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And more judgement! Who wants that?
